
Yard Act
About This Track
'Ghetto' appeared on Akon's debut album 'Trouble', released as a single in December 2004 to Latin America and parts of Europe. The track reached number 92 on the US Billboard Hot 100, offering an early statement of the Senegalese-American singer's thematic concerns. The song catalogues the mechanics of poverty and violence with documentary plainness. Akon writes of quicksand streets, state time, K-9 scars, corner toolies, gunshots at night and crooked cops on sight. The second verse broadens the frame to teenage women growing up with AIDS and the question of whether the struggle will ever stop, the chorus anchoring each observation to the repeated fact of location. The production is spare, the delivery measured. Akon holds the word 'ghetto' as both subject and refrain, the repetition less anthem than inventory, a tally of conditions that come and go whilst the geography remains.
"Ghetto" is a track by Akon, from the album Trouble, released 29th June 2004. Full lyrics are available below.
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